Blue Mountain Trouble

by Martin Mordecai

  And now, if Trucky’s news was to be believed, the day to be chosen — or not — had arrived.

  Jackson and Pollyread walked in silence through the gate of Marcus Garvey Primary, caught up in the same thoughts, not needing even to share them. They didn’t remember anything about the exam itself, but the lead-up to it had been a difficult time for all the Gilmores: months of dread and drilling for the twins, extra lessons paid for by extra hours in the field and at Redemption Ground market, at the carpentry table in the shed, or down in Town trying to make business. And studying until they felt their bottoms glued to the chairs around the dining table, with Mama and Poppa taking them up on endless study sheets, everybody weary and worried.

  “What is for you cannot be un-for you,” Mama had said when they came home from the exam-taking, to calm them.

  “When you do your best, the angels can’t do better,” was Poppa’s contribution.

  Today, Jackson thought, they would find out what was for who, and who would need angels. Miss Watkins, Marcus Garvey’s grade-six teacher and extra-lesson tutor, confidently expected the twins, in the school-yard lingo derived from American sports television, to nail the exam and get their first choice of school, St. Giles, Mama’s old school. Unless disaster struck like a biblical plague.

  Given Pollyread’s marks through their whole time at Marcus Garvey, that was as unlikely as snow in Top Valley. Jackson knew that his case was, as Mama liked to joke, a horse of a different story. Not that she joked about Jackson’s marks. “Bwoy, you brain have sieve?” she would ask sometimes, tapping his head gently but firmly. “Everything just run through it like banana water.” Pretty much everything, Jackson had to admit, except numbers. They stuck. He was always top of whatever class he was in for mathematics, regularly beating even Pollyread. Words were a different matter. Jackson couldn’t see the point of studying about words. He never had a problem getting people to understand what he wanted to say, and he could read any book from the library in Content Gap. But he wasn’t very good at answering the kinds of questions that Miss Watkins and the people at the Ministry in Town asked on the test papers. They didn’t seem to make sense in the way that sums made sense to him. Sums were real, and useful. And if you understood numbers, they could be as fanciful as the big words that Pollyread liked to throw at him.

  But there had been nothing fanciful about the words or the figures in the Common Entrance exam.

  As he walked through the half-broken-down gateposts of Marcus Garvey Primary beside his sister, who was all but skipping with anticipation, Jackson felt his belly-bottom tighten into a fist.

  Assembly took place in the open yard between the two blocks of classrooms, which ran parallel to each other. The children stood in ranks there, according to grade. The sixers, also generally the tallest, were at the back. The teachers sat on chairs on a raised covered passageway that ran between the two classroom blocks; it served as a kind of stage for morning assembly.

  The teachers sat very still, barely noticing one another … or the children. Miss Watkins looked steadfastly down at the second graders, whom she had nothing to do with. She had hardly a glance for her grade-six charges at the back of the serried ranks, shuffling their feet and trying hard to appear casual. Miss Sharpton, who had taught the twins reading and writing in grade two and encouraged their love of books thereafter, looked down into her lap, perhaps already saying prayers.

  Tension hung in the air like a fine dust that you breathed.

  When Miss Phillipson appeared in the doorway of the old school building, all chatter and movement subsided into the yellow stillness. She was about the smallest member of the staff, but seemed taller to the children because of her position as principal, and because her back was as straight as a post. When Jackson looked at Miss Phillipson he thought of the people he used to draw in second- and third-grade art class, all straight lines. She wore pale, simple blouses tucked into dark, straight-cut skirts ending just below the knee, and neat black shoes with little heels. The outfit was so consistent — as was the hairstyle, which was not really a style, just pulled back in a bun — that the slightest variation was noted immediately. Today, above the usual dark skirt, there was a burgundy blouse with long sleeves, and, as though that wasn’t enough, a large yellow rosebud in the lapel. As well as the battered old Bible she always brought to assembly, she carried in her left hand a large brown envelope.

  Jackson, without looking, could feel Trucky’s smile of satisfaction from five spaces farther down the grade-six line. The twins seldom stood together at assembly, but this morning, without thinking about it, they found themselves side by side, touching shoulders from time to time.

  Miss Phillipson came to rest at the lectern placed in the middle of the row of teachers’ chairs, putting the Bible on the lectern but continuing to hold the envelope. She looked out at the gathering.

  “Good morning, Marcus Garvey Primary,” she said. She didn’t speak loudly but her voice carried easily to the grade sixers at the back of the assembly.

  “Good morning, Miss Phillipson,” everyone replied, including the teachers. She gave them all a brief, thin smile.

  “Well, brothers and sisters,” Miss Phillipson began as usual — though her tone always made it clear that any relationship with her good self was a remote possibility — “we all know what day today is.”

  The grade-six line rustled. Knowing smiles were exchanged but quickly turned inward.

  “But first,” Miss Phillipson said, “let us pray.”

  Normally, there was a reading from the Bible, one of the Psalms perhaps, or from something uplifting that the principal happened to be reading. Kahlil Gibran was a favorite, as was Maya Angelou and, on days of national importance, Marcus Garvey. Prayers were generally read from prayer books that lived in a space below the canted top of the lectern.

  But Miss Phillipson made no move toward the Bible she had put on the lectern, nor the prayer books underneath. Instead, she lowered her head slightly. As though theirs were all connected to hers, all the other heads went down too. “Perhaps the Good Lord will find it in his mercy,” she said in her flat voice that carried beyond the children to the row of coolie plum trees marking off the quadrangle from the rest of the school yard, “to work a few miracles on the papers I got from the Ministry yesterday, and bring joy where I saw only sorrow.”

  There were whispers and shifting feet, a few giggles. The twins didn’t dare look at each other but touched shoulders briefly.

  “Dear Lord,” Miss Phillipson began her prayer, “you who turned water into wine, we beseech you in your loving-kindness …” Her singsong stream of words coiled around the supplicatory thoughts of her students like smoke from a wood fire, carrying all up to heaven. Jackson heard Pollyread, a more attentive Sunday schooler than her brother, whispering to herself: “The Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.” Jackson’s own plea was defensive and kept to himself: Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom.

  “Ah-men!” Miss Phillipson’s conclusion was, as always, emphatic, cutting off any further dialogue with the deity. Heads restored themselves to their normal angles. To Jackson, the small familiar figure before them suddenly seemed strange and powerful: She had assumed absolute control of the grade sixers’ lives, simply because of what she knew about them inside that envelope.

  Miss Phillipson, in the brisk manner that she did things, flipped open the big envelope and drew out a thick sheaf of paper. She wore glasses for reading, small oval lenses in a delicate gold frame. They rested on the flares of her nostrils, which were oddly broad for her small face. She touched the glasses tenderly, a habit of hers.

  “Well, school,” she began, “this has been a momentous year. For some of us, this will be our last year at Marcus Garvey.” Her eyes, light dancing off the gold-framed spectacles, swept the line of grade sixers at the back. “I have here in my hand the results that we’ve all been waiting for, I know. For the Common Entrance examination,” she added, as if
anyone were in any doubt. The principal paused. “Some of you have probably done better than you yourself expected, and certainly exceeded the expectations of myself and Miss Watkins.” Jackson felt a lifting of his spirit, but it didn’t last: He thought he knew how badly he had done. “But others,” Miss Phillipson continued, “others have not done as well as expected.” She paused again, searching the line of sixers. Jackson felt a paintbrush dipped in cold water touch his heart. “As I call out your name, you will come forward and stand in front of the school here beside me.” One finger pointed imperiously to a spot slightly in front and to the left of herself.

  “Albert, Aidrene.”

  “AA,” as she liked to refer to herself — “Miss Fancy” to some of her classmates — who was always first in everything arranged alphabetically, pulled herself away from the line and marched up to the front of the assembly to stand right beside Miss Phillipson, grinning with self-satisfaction, as though she belonged naturally at the focus of attention and acclaim. A few hands clapped, but Miss Phillipson silenced them with a swift glance and a curt “Later, please.”

  “Darby, Jeremiah.” The class clown, who wore the biggest and thickest pair of glasses anyone had ever seen on a small mongoose face, zoomed out of the lineup with his arms flailing like those of a minibus driver swerving in and out of traffic in Town, changing gears as he navigated the stretch of school yard up to the principal and coming to an abrupt stop, with bobbing head and air-brake sighs, beside Miss Fancy, whose smile had faded. Jeremiah had been driving everywhere, in and out of school, from the time he was able to walk. The teachers had long ago given up trying to curb him, except in the classroom itself. Besides, in class he was attentive — and got very good marks.

  Miss Phillipson, a rare smile on her face, waited for the bus driver to completely settle beside Aidrene Albert.

  “Newton, Kerry-Ann.”

  Jackson’s body had been stiffening, as if anticipating a blow. When the blow came, he didn’t even feel it — Pollyread did. Jackson felt his sister go wood-stiff beside him. Miss Phillipson had skipped over G for Gilmore! Whatever the names being called out meant, they belonged to the children who had habitually come at the top of grade six. But Pollyread, who had come first overall more often than all the others — she had been completely ignored.

  She was staring straight ahead. Jackson knew she wasn’t seeing anything. Nor was he, just the blur of movement as Miss Phillipson called out another name, which Jackson didn’t even register.

  “These,” he heard Miss Phillipson say from far away, “are our star students, whom we are sending off into the great noisy city down below to their first choice of schools. You have to be very good to get into your first choice, because all across the land, other children are trying to do the same. Let us now give them a big hand of applause.”

  Jackson didn’t hear the sounds made by the fluttering hands around him. Their pale palms were like butterflies, silent in his ears. He didn’t feel his right hand slapping against his left. He was feeling Pollyread beside him, the shoulder touching his thawing like a piece of meat from Mama’s fridge, but no other sign of life from her. And he was thinking: The world has turned upside down! The angels were asleep.

  The flickering hands settled. Miss Phillipson had raised an arm, which all knew was a command for quiet. The hand clapping and cheers died away like windows closing.

  “This is the best set of results Marcus Garvey Primary has ever had,” Miss Phillipson said, raising her small self on tiptoe and making her audience the gift of a smile. “And there are several students who have been given their second choice of schools, which is a worthy achievement also. Miss Watkins will have the list and will take it to her classroom after assembly.” The principal turned and handed over the papers from the Ministry to the grade-six teacher.

  “But —” She paused and seemed to rock back and forth slightly. “Splendid as these young people have performed, there is even better to come.” The principal’s face seemed to swell a little before their eyes, as though she were trying to swallow something. “I’ve saved the best for last.”

  A ripple of murmurs and foot shuffling. She’s going to give us a holiday, Jackson said to himself, though the thought didn’t give him any kind of pleasure.

  “You all know that each year the Ministry awards a few scholarships.” A pause. “To the very brightest children.” Another pause. “The very brightest. And,” she continued after another dramatic pause and an eye sweep of her audience, “we’ve never had one of those brilliant students in our school, with their name and their school’s name in the papers and everybody biggin’ them up.” Miss Phillipson paused to allow her audience time to appreciate and savor her knowledge and use of school-yard slang — no one about to point out to her that it was already out of style. “Well,” she continued, pleased with herself and her news, “we have one of those very people right here with us at our very own Marcus Garvey Primary School.” She glowed like a ripe mango.

  Jackson didn’t allow himself to think. He noticed, however, in the pin-drop silence, a quivering beside him. Pollyread seemed to become a couple inches shorter, and he realized she’d been standing on tiptoe all this time. Then she grew again, bright eyes fixed on the principal. Holding on for dear life, Jackson thought.

  “Students and staff of Marcus Garvey Primary.” Miss Phillipson’s voice rose a notch. “I present to you our very own government scholar for this year, one of only seventeen across the land and the very first government scholar from this august institution….” She paused and flung her arm out, finger pointing toward the middle of the anxious line of grade sixers. “Penelope Gilmore!”

  In the split-second silence between the calling of her name and the beginning of the clapping, Jackson heard, clear as a pane of glass, “Ohmigodsaveme” whispered beside him. And then Pollyread — Penelope on her birth paper, Pel to her twin, his first word, Pen to Mama and Poppa except when they needed to make a point, Polly to other family and longtime friends because she started talking before walking and hadn’t stopped since, and Pollyread to just about everyone because when she wasn’t talking she was reading — dropped down in a crouch.

  Had she fainted? That had happened a couple times that Jackson could remember, and he bent over to aid his sister.

  “YES!” Pollyread screamed, bouncing Jackson out of the way as she shot up into the air, fisted left arm straight, television-sports style. “Yes!” Again, softer, pulling her arm down to her side to complete the ritual.

  Then, with the big cat grin that Jackson knew so well, she pranced along the line of grade sixers and up to the front of the gathered school, floating on the applause.

  * * *

  Afterward, even years afterward, Pollyread could have told you, in minute detail, about the announcement and the explosion in her head, the green and blue stars silently bursting, the walk through the applause like she was a knife in an avocado pear; and of the feeling she had, walking toward Miss Phillipson and the place of honor that Aidrene Albert made by shuffling away from the principal, that she was walking away from herself, her life until now.

  And she could have told you, afterward, of the coolness of the principal’s congratulatory hand, soft as baby powder, and of her smile, not much warmer — Miss Phillipson, who’d been overheard to say, That Gilmore girl is too bright for her own good. She could have told you, as she told a multitude of people, of the little dance by Jeremiah Darby in front of her, stamping his feet to the tight rhythmic clapping of the rest of the school.

  And she could have told you about the beginning of her speech, responding to the cadence of hands, feet, and shouts of: “Speech! Speech!” She had to recall it afterward, because she didn’t have any idea at the time of what she was doing or saying. She just remembered, laughing at herself as she told it later, sounding like one of those stars on the television (though the Gilmores didn’t have TV, the children were allowed to watch occasionally at one or other of their few neighbors who did) w
inning an Academy Award or something like that. She remembered having the good sense to begin by thanking Miss Phillipson and Miss Watkins before even Mama and Poppa. And she remembered saying something about how wonderful her fellow grade sixers had been — and thinking: Why am I saying this? I don’t even like some of them.

  Clearest in her memory was of turning to the line of teachers behind her to find Miss Watkins. And of running and throwing herself into Miss Watkins’s arms and bursting, finally, into tears and wanting to disappear from happiness into that large cushiony woman, whose arms felt as cool as sleep.

  The lone johncrow floating on the hot morning saw children running all over Valley at a time when none but the smallest should have been visible. But Miss Phillipson had declared a holiday for the thirty-seven grade sixers, even those who had not covered themselves in glory. Some of these, as the observant johncrow would have noticed, were not rushing in the direction of home, where the principal had sent them, or indeed rushing at all. Bad news weighs a lot.

  Those who had something to celebrate, however, tumbled through the school doors and scattered in the direction of their homes — or elsewhere. At Stedman’s Corner there was further division, onto the paths leading up and down the valley sides like veins.

  As often happened, the twins found themselves in a loose group with classmates who lived along the same path. They came to Christine Aiken’s gate first. A sweet-natured girl who dreamed of being a beautician and had more interest than Pollyread in the dolls that Pollyread used to get for Christmas and birthdays, Christine had nothing special to report to her mother, who had four other children younger than Christine to worry about, with no resident father. Christine’s departure to Town, had she won a place, would have thrown her mother into a panic: Where would the money come from and who would help her mind the smaller children? But there had never been much chance of that. Christine would go on to Cross Point All-Age, which her mother had attended, continuing to look after her younger brothers and sisters and style the hair of her classmates, until time came when Christine would begin having children of her own. Her mother had had her at sixteen.